Robert Colvile is a writer and senior comment editor at the Telegraph, who cares more about politics and policy than is probably healthy - for his newest pieces, please see here. He tweets as @rcolvile.

There's no easy way to say this, Nick…

Nick Clegg has taken to YouTube to say something that politicians are normally pretty reluctant to, unless it concerns tragedies decades or centuries past: sorry. He's very, very sorry about the whole tuition fee mess, and promises not to do it again. In fact, he promises never to promise anything, ever, that he can't deliver.

The video is bound to provoke intense analysis ahead of Lib Dem conference, but here are a few brief thoughts:

1) It's incredible how much tuition fees still resonates. Two years on, this is still the one totemic issue – even more than going into Coalition with the Tories – on which the Lib Dems' standing in the country was broken.

2) There are 376 other videos from the Lib Dems on YouTube? Wow.

3) Blaming the Tories (and Labour) for the failure to keep the pledge – due to the inevitable nature of Coalition – doesn't really wash. The whole idea was always an act of unaffordable grandstanding, from a party clearly not expecting to make it into government (or not thinking through the consequences if it did). Even the Liberal leadership knew it was a hostage to fortune.

4) Brave as the confession is, it also showcases one of Clegg's less appealing aspects – his penchant, which I've blogged on before, to resort to pained self-justification. In this instance, it's not so prominent, but it's still there.

4) Will it work? Clegg's already apologised for tuition fees, and much good it did him. It's hard to see how a repeat performance will work any better. Especially since those he's appealing to probably won't grant him the right to be heard: YouGov recently found that, of those who've deserted the Lib Dems, just 1% consider Clegg "strong", 2% think him "decisive", and 4% reckon he "sticks to what he believes in".

5) Still, it's a brave attempt to tackle one of the most toxic issues in modern politics – a corrosive lack of trust in politicians. This kind of self-flagellation, along with the promise never to sin again, is about the only thing that hasn't been tried.